Filling the Void

NBA 2016-2017: Week 5

Thanksgiving week is a time in sports dedicated to football but there are still some NBA stories worth mentioning. No games were played on the normally busy NBA day Thursday due to the holiday, and probably because the NBA knows everyone would be watching the NFL games. Greg Popovich is fired up, the Pistons are moving to a new arena, two NBA legends received the medal of freedom, and Russell Westbrook is still putting up triple doubles.

Pathetic Performance

The Spurs defeated the Mavericks in San Antonio by a score of 96 – 91. The Mavs are really bad this year being led by a decrepit Nowitzki, a lite version of Wesley Matthews, and over paid Harrison Barnes, so it is not surprising that the Spurs were able to defeat them without putting up their best effort. Pop was furious after the win and publicly disemboweled his team during the post-game press conference. Here is what he had to say:

“That was a pathetic performance on the part of the Spurs. You know, they had some guys out, we had some guys out, but they had a lot more out than we did. I thought we showed a lack of humility, a lack of respect for the opponent, a very pathetic performance at both ends of the court, both in execution and in grunt, in fiber, in desire. It was an awful performance. Oh, and they deserved to win the basketball game. I forgot to say that.”

It’s not often that you hear a coach give comments like that after a victory. The Spurs are working on a 20 year run of producing good teams and this demeanor from Popovich has to be a big factor in this 20 year steak of success. It is hard to not be a fan of the Spurs and Pop, especially after fiery comments like these.

Downtown Detroit

The Red Wings are moving to a new arena in downtown Detroit next to Comerica Park and Ford Field. The arena doesn’t come with the prestigious sounding sponsor like Comerica and Ford; this new stadium is called Little Caesars Arena. So from now on when you here about a home Red Wings game, you will be forced to think about shitty pizza. The Pistons no longer wanted to play 45 minutes away from the rest of the Detroit teams, so they will also play their home games out of $5 hot-n-ready arena starting next year as well. The Palace of Auburn Hills has only been around for 30 years and without the Pistons, it probably will not stand for much longer. But now all of the white suburban families can drive into downtown Detroit and watch all 4 major sports teams in the same area.

Medal of Freedom

With his tenure as president dwindling down, Obama handed out his final batch of Freedom Medals. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest honor a civilian can be given and is only given to people that the president feels “have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” Two of the people he awarded this medal too are Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Both of these guys made a huge impact on the NBA and therefore on the lives of many American civilians.

Russell fucking Westbrook

The Mountain Dew drinking, photograph vest wearing, Jordan brand wearing Russell Westbrook is playing insane this year. He passed LeBron James this week in career triple doubles (44) in 395 fewer games. This moves him to 6th all-time behind Larry Bird (59), Wilt Chamberlain (78), Jason Kidd (107), Magic Johnson (138), and Oscar Robinson (181). All of these dudes, except Jason Kidd, played in an era when defense wasn’t played and the act of putting up double digits in 3 different statistical categories didn’t even have a name. It is much harder to accomplish triple doubles in today’s NBA and Westbrook has 7 out of the first 18 games this season. The first 6 of those included triple doubles where he scored 30 points. Jesus Christ that is unbelievable. There is no way he is going to average a triple double for the season but he sure is going to try.